As seems to be the case for a number of other builds that I have have the pleasure to read through, a number of life events had conspired to put the 500 rebuild on hold. I had made decent progress dismantling nearly the whole bike when the drop in the price of oil left me with a lot of free time due to a layoff, though also with little in the way of funds to do much with.
Over the same period we moved into a new house then started a new job (which fortunately helped out in the parts buying department). Now it feels as though things have started to settle down and I am finally getting back into making progress on the 500.
When I left off last fall I had just had the crankcases, cylinders, and head, dry ice blasted to remove the old paint and oil.
This proved mostly successful, but I don't believe it does quite the job of vapour blasting. Ultimately after an attempt and failure to paint the crankcases myself, I brought them into a local shop that does ceramic coating and the results were pretty amazing. Since I have had the entire engine ceramic coated, the frame modified by a local machine shop to shorten up the rear end, and had the frame powder coated. All the crankshaft bearings have been replaced, The head remachined, new valves, new valve springs, replaced a few rocker arms that had the beginning of some pitting, sourced out a decent condition camshaft and had it poly coated.
I am finding that even with all of the parts organized in bags and referencing parts lists, the shop manual and this forum, the task of putting together is a tad more challenging than taking apart. haha.
